Contents

Daily Calendars: Introduction

The Adelphi, and the Sans Pareil before it, like all theatres of the day, operated on a similar system.
The season opened with three or even four new pieces, which ran until the audience had had enough of one of them,
or the manager decided to offer more variety. Then a new piece was presented. Achieving a long run was
the goal of every manager, but the wise always kept additional pieces in readiness. Some plays did not last
a week; some lasted a season. There was no way to tell
until the audience’s will made itself known. If possible, the main piece for the evening was retained as long
as possible, while other pieces were changed. The system of "half-price" admission made it profitable to change
the "bottom" of the bill in order to encourage those who had already seen the main piece to return. However,
the number of nightly offerings gradually shrank: four pieces became three, and three, two. By the end of
the century, there was only one play on an Adelphi program.
If it did not have a long run, that was a serious matter. Hence the value of marquee names: William Terriss,
Jessie Millward.

Given these circumstances, a calendar attempting to set out the full details of every performance
would rapidly become wasteful of space and overly consumptive of the user's time. The Adelphi Daily Calendar
is, therefore, designed to incorporate a large amount of variable information in an efficient format–easy to read and
sparing of space. The editors of the present Calendar have followed the lead of the editors of
The London Stage 1660-1800 (for a full citation see
the Bibliography) but have introduced a pair of important innovations besides providing additional information.

The Adelphi Calendar adapts the previous calendar's "laddering" system, in which full cast and other details
appear only when a piece is first performed. Under the rubric, Cast, only changes are recorded. If there
are no changes, the user knows the cast is identical to the reference cast (see below).

The first of the two innovations is the inclusion of a Reference Cast, printed below the First Night Cast
on the opening night of a piece. The Reference Cast is a listing of the predominant performers of each
role, irrespective of whether they are the same as those listed in the First Night Cast. For subsequent performances,
only changes from the Reference Cast for that specific performance are given. In short, a cast change appears in the
daily calendar only when there is a variation from the Reference Cast. It is most important to note that cast
changes do not apply to the First Night Cast only the Reference Cast.

The second innovation is the addition of a tracking system whereby a piece always includes the date of the first,
previous and next performance, which allows the user to track performances forwards and backwards throughout the season.

Take, for example, the calendar entry for Tuesday, 5 March 1861, marking the one hundred and fiftieth performance of
Dion Boucicault's Irish play The Colleen Bawn; or, The Brides of Garryowen. It is the second piece on the bill:

Under the rubric, Performances, the laddering system points to the opening performance on 10 September 1860.
(Laddering is within a season only.) The prior; performance was on 4 March and the next on 6 March.

There has been a change in cast in the current performance. Miss Aldridge plays the part of Kathleen Creagh (taking
over, as we may discover by looking back to the Reference Cast of 10 September, for Miss Hayman). All other
roles are as displayed in the Reference Cast.

In this entry and reference system, continuity receives precedence, while at the same time, change is highlighted and
easy to identify. The insertion of the simple word BUT, entirely in upper case, makes it easy to search for and find
any changes in the cast. For example, following the forward pointer for next performance in each calendar entry for
The Colleen Bawn, the user knows Miss Aldridge continued to perform Kathleen Creagh through the end of the
season. Other alterations in
the source, such as the addition of new roles or their omission, are indicated by ADDS or OMITS. The latter may be
accompanied by a caution that the bill may have been truncated to save space, not because roles were omitted.

Editors enter source information for the Calendar entry at the top right corner of each daily entry. On the first
line, the date indicated on the source is given. Bills generally covered Monday to Wednesday and Thursday to
Saturday. On the second line is the type of source, whether a playbill, program, a review in a newspaper or journal,
or some other record. The third line indicates the location of the source. After the daily calendars, come
summaries of seasonal activity:

Theatre information:

Theatre name, ticket prices, and curtain times.

Seasonal dates:

Opening and closing dates for the season, number of performances, benefits and
their recipients, dark nights with reasons, and special performances (occasional,
juvenile, charity, etc.)

Theatre management:

Management, front-of-house personnel and functionaries.

Author/Pieces:

All creators of pieces performed, titles and opening night date.

Musical Composers and Arrangers:

Those having to do with the music of a piece, their titles and date of first performance.

Choreographers:

Dance arrangers, the title of the piece and date first performed.

Actors/Actresses:

Every performer paired with each role he or she played, how
often with a "window date" of first and last appearance in the role.

Singers/Dancers:

Those who sang or danced in a piece, with date of performance.

Pieces Performed and Summary Cast Lists:

Each piece played, its author and genre, number of performances and a
window date. Actor/role pairs of everyone in the piece, number of times
in the part with a window date of performance.

Genre:

Contributing editors’ assessment of the genre of piece (not necessarily what is on the source.)

Songs, Composers and Songs/Dances, Choreographers and Dancers:

Titles of songs, composers, and singers, dancers, choreographers and dancers with
dates of performance. Usually noted only on the night of a new piece.

Other Production Credits:

Special contributions listed on the source such as "transformations."

Daily Calendars: 1806-1900

Contributing editors were assigned a block of dates, usually a five or ten year span,
and are credited with completing them. In some instances, through no fault of the
editor, additional work was required and carried out by the General Editors or their team.
The following list includes the names of these "secondary" editors," but the individual calendars
are rightly credited to contributing editors.

Originally published by Greenwood Press as The Sans Pareil Theatre 1806-1819,
Adelphi Theatre 1819-1850: An Index to Authors, Titles, Performers, 1988, and The
Adelphi Theatre 1850-1900: An Index to Authors, Titles, Performers and Management, 1992.